Increasingly, content is protected behind a signup page.
Whether it’s a webinar, a digital book, a video, or an app, you have to provide an email. Only after verifying your email, are you allowed to continue.
But sometimes, you want to look at something without being added to the email distribution list or be sent sales emails.
Introducing temporary email service.
It’s simple. Temporary emails are:
free throwaway email address. It's temporary. It's transient. It's disposable. It's meant for those times when you don't want to give out your real address.
While you can google and find a lot of providers, there’s two I recommend [Disclosure: I’m not paid for either of these recommendations]:
About 10 Minute Mail
10 Minute Mail is created by Devon Hillard. It’s been around since 2007 and it does exactly what the name suggests, giving you a temporary email address for 10 minutes. My friend Justin at Google introduced me to the service several years back.
If you visited the website, yes, it looks terrible. Full of banner and video ads, but it works. The ads are how Devon makes money from the 1M+ visitors per month.
10 Minute Mail generates a dynamic domain along with the username every time you visit. The generated emails pass many front-end email validation checks.
But if you want a fixed email domain that doesn’t end with “mrvpm.net” and is easier on the eyes, there’s Maildrop.
About Maildrop
Unlike 10 Minute Mail, Maildrop uses a fixed domain name: maildrop.cc. In exchange, you get to create your own username.
But there’s a small trade-off. The username you pick might already be active, in which case, you’ll see some existing emails when you click on View Inbox.
This shouldn’t be a problem, but just so you are aware.
Maildrop is created by another engineer, Mark Beeson and you can even see his code on github.
Why am I writing about this?
As PMs, as much as we’re responsible for building gated sign-up pages, it’s important to know how easy they are to defeat. Furthermore, it’s also important to understand how to use temporary email services yourselves, the next time you try out a competitor’s products or webinar. Productivity hacks work both ways.
Did this most make you more productive? If so, forward to another product manager you think would benefit.
Additional Reading: